I became a student of Christian Science about twenty-two years ago and have had many proofs of God s care, for which I am grateful. As I began to realize that the harmony of my experience was determined by my state of thinking, I also began to learn to accept what is true and to reject what is false. I did not become interested in Christian Science because of a health problem but because of problems in my life that had become humanly impossible to solve, and I have found that all human problems, however difficult, can be worked out in Science.

About sixteen years ago, while vacationing in Canada, I accompanied three other persons from the fishing lodge on the island where we were staying, on a day's trip to the mainland to do some shopping. I was assured by the owner of the lodge that I would be safe, as one of the three persons was a French-Canadian guide, one was a swimming instructor, and the other was his college age daughter, who also was an expert swimmer. All three had spent their summers for several years on the lake that we had to cross and knew it well. The lake was very deep and about twenty miles across, and we were making the trip in a small motorboat.

We started back to the island late in the afternoon, and when we were about halfway across the lake, a sudden storm came up. There was a very high wind of almost hurricane velocity and a downpour of rain. The waves went several feet over our heads, and three of us hurriedly threw everything out of the boat and started dipping the water out. We each had a good-sized container to use but the water still nearly filled the boat. The guide was handling the motor as well as he could, but suddenly it stopped. I noticed the look of fear on all their faces, and no one was saying a word.

Then these words from Mrs. Eddy's poem "Christ My Refuge" came to me very clearly (Poems, p. 12):

Immediately a feeling of calmness came over me, and I looked at the girl and asked, "You aren't afraid, are you?" Her look of fear disappeared. As we kept on dipping the water out of the boat, more words of this poem came to me just as clearly,

In a short time our little boat had been blown into the shelter of a huge rock, many feet high, and we sat there protected from the wind and rain while we kept on dipping the water out as the waves went over the sides of the boat. After a while the storm subsided as suddenly as it had started, and we were able to go on to the island.

When we arrived, it was necessary for us to walk three quarters of a mile to the lodge, and we encountered huge trees blown down and much evidence of the force of the storm. When we walked into the camp, everyone was gathered in the main dining room of the lodge for dinner, but no one had been able to eat because of what they feared. The camp's owner, a French Canadian who had spent his life in that area, said he knew that if we hadn't left the mainland before the storm came up, we would never attempt the trip back; then he realized that if we had started before the storm came up and were on the lake, there was no chance of our ever reaching the island.

The next morning he told me that the guide had said he just couldn't understand how it was that we were saved, and neither could he understand my calmness. He expected me to panic, since this was my first experience of a storm on one of these big lakes and I could not swim. Then the owner's wife spoke up and asked, "What were you thinking through it all?" I told them that I was praying, that I was a Christian Scientist and was praying the way we are taught to do in Science. She was very much interested in knowing something about Science, and I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to tell her about it.

(Mrs.) Ruth L. Hansen, Highland, Indiana